


to build again

by sunhei



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Background Hilda/Marianne, Blue Lions Route, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dark!Claude, F!Byleth/Claude, F/M, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Racism, Sexual Content, but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25201765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunhei/pseuds/sunhei
Summary: Flirting doesn’t come naturally to him. Not in this tongue. Fodlanese lacks the velvety dips and divots of his mother tongue, so at first his quips fall flat and his jokes even flatter. But he learns, syllable by syllable, how to build a personality again, how to be suave and charming in the enemy’s language, hismother’slanguage, so that by the time he turns seventeen he’s already cavorted with his share of giggling Fodlanese maidens.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 32
Kudos: 141





	1. Chapter 1

Almyrans aren’t a terribly religious people, but they have their moments.

They’re like the Fodlanese when it comes to matters of sin and character, at least. They look down on those driven mad by envy. Jealousy was a coward’s game, a lesser man’s foible; it meant casting covetous eyes on someone else’s pile of gold while sitting there empty-handed by yourself. Better to work on amassing your own wealth, piece by piece, than to eye a neighbor’s.

His father, more mountain than man, tells him time and time again: ‘ _Do not wait to take what is yours._ ’

Khalid—no, _Claude_ , get it right this time, damn it—has always regarded this advice with derision bordering on glee, amused by its glaring hypocrisy.

“But it’s why we raid their precious Locket,” he tells his stern-faced tutor during a history lesson. The harsh lines around her mouth deepen, a sign that he’s truly pissing her off. “It is, isn’t it? Because we desperately want what they have.”

  
  


-

  
  


Envy, he’s since learned, is the currency Fodlan runs on.

There’s a dark bramble of it in his heart whenever he thinks of their new professor.

Claude sees her flitting around the monastery with her long cloak billowing behind her, taking her time to greet even the shyest students. She never smiles, not even once, but everyone she talks to receives her warmly.

Then Byleth picks the Blue Lions to lead. Disappointment and envy don’t quite capture the full extent of Claude’s feelings on the matter, but they’re certainly the most apparent.

“You sure do spend a lot of time staring at the new professor,” Hilda says over lunch.

“She’s very striking,” Ignatz observes. “She has the perfect likeness for a portrait. ...I-if she were even interested in such a thing.”

“You’ve got that right,” Claude murmurs, chin propped up in his hand. It’s no skin off his nose to acknowledge the obvious, especially when the other Deer were being so open about it.

“She looks nothing like her father,” Hilda adds, the corners of her mouth curving up faintly. “They only fight the same.”

“I beg to differ,” mutters Leonie as she gnaws through a piece of steak.

“Then beg,” says Hilda sweetly.

  
  


-

  
  


The intensity of his fixation on her doesn’t make sense. Not at first, anyway.

But when Claude sees her wild eyes over the glint of her sword, a sword pointed directly at _him_ , something clicks into place.

It’s a relief to know that this is only a mock battle.

“You know that was a joke, right? Jeez, not so much as a smile…” is all he can say before she knocks him out cold.

  
  


-

  
  


Flirting doesn’t come naturally to him. Not in this tongue. Fodlanese lacks the velvety dips and divots of his mother tongue, so at first his quips fall flat and his jokes even flatter. But he learns, syllable by syllable, how to build a personality again, how to be suave and charming in the enemy’s language, his _mother’s_ language, so that by the time he turns seventeen he’s already cavorted with his share of giggling Fodlanese maidens.

“You’re so _exotic_ ,” they tell him. They tuck strands of flaxen hair behind their ears and bare their sparkling white teeth. “Why don’t you take me to visit your country someday?”

 _Because they’d devour little fawns like you,_ he wants to say. _Because they’d leave your rotting, eyeless corpse for the buzzards._

“Careful, or I might just smuggle you across the border myself,” is what he tells them.

One of Byleth’s students, the red-haired flirt from House Gautier, works his own rendition of this charm on the students at the Officer’s Academy. He’s not bad, not really, but there’s something decidedly hateful in the way he smiles.

“What do you say, Professor? Shall we head out for dinner sometime? My treat.”

“No,” says Byleth.

“Come on, Professor,” Sylvain teases, circling her as they walk the grassy path to the courtyard. “I’m sure you’re tired after spending all day teaching--”

“I have plans already,” Byleth interjects.

“What, with His Highness? I know he’s our future king, but he can’t keep you all to himself.”

“Everyone is allowed to sign up for extra training sessions,” says Byleth. She meets Claude’s eyes by accident as they walk to the dining hall. “I don’t have favorites, Sylvain.”

  
  


-

  
  


“Teach,” says Claude. “I’ve come to take you up on your offer.”

Byleth sets a bundle of newly made arrowheads on top of the equipment chest and sighs softly. “Training hours are done for the day,” she says.

“Aw, and after I came all the way here from the other side of the monastery? I’ll have you know that I canceled stable duty for this. Hilda sure isn’t happy.”

“Sounds like that’s your problem, not mine,” she says.

She’s not wearing her cloak tonight. Without its bulk, she’s girlish and pale in the sparkling moonlight. It’s striking how she’s so much daintier without pauldrons or armor in the way. 

In another life, one where she wasn’t a mercenary, Byleth would be petal-soft and swaddled in finery. Ignatz is on to something: If Byleth were to swap dented armor for gossamer gowns, she’d be the fairest of them all. On par with his mother, even.

“Sorry Teach, but I’m determined,” he says. The note of sincerity in his voice must placate her, because her shoulders lose some of their stiffness.

“It’s fine,” she says. “Pick your weapon.”

“Already did,” says Claude blithely. He raises his wooden training sword to demonstrate, and Byleth nods.

  
  


-

  
  


She’s slow today. Her blows lack their usual weight, and her footwork is almost sloppy. After one good hit on Claude’s shoulder, he turns the tables with a feint.

“Something on your mind, Teach?” he goads. “You’re not yourself today.”

Normally she screens him out, ignores his blather like it’s background noise, but today she falters for a second too long.

Within seconds he has her pinned to the ground like a wyvern with its prey. Byleth’s eyes widen with genuine surprise and he eats that right up. Who else at the academy can say they’ve seen her like this? Flat on her back, flushed and vulnerable—

“Claude,” she says calmly. Always so calm. “Let me up.”

“You’ve got such gorgeous eyes, Teach. Did you know that?”

Her arms tremble with the strength it takes to hold him up. Claude winks at her because he can, because he wants to, and she doesn’t disappoint: her eyes flash with bright anger.

“You have ten seconds,” she says.

“What are you, my mother?”

“Ten,” says Byleth. “Nine.”

Claude lifts himself up with a sigh. “And here I thought we were bonding,” he says.

Byleth rubs her wrists as she sits up. “Not sure what you think ‘bonding’ is, but…” she trails off, dusting the dirt from her chest, and Claude follows the motion of her hand with his eyes.

On impulse, he catches her hand with his own. Her wrist is so thin and delicate between his fingers, easy enough to break. But he’s seen this same wrist cleave a massive broadsword through charging brigands. He’s seen it painted black with enemy blood.

Byleth watches him closely, giving him none of her thoughts. Her other hand tightens around the hilt of her practice sword.

“Claude,” she says, voice a low warning.

“Is my face really that interesting?” he asks her.

Byleth doesn’t even blink.

“Come on, Teach. Humor me a little. I find _you_ fascinating for so many reasons. Aren’t you at least a little fascinated by me, too?”

“I’m here to help you with your training,” she says, “not to ‘fascinate’ you like some kind of spectacle.”

“But you are,” says Claude quickly. “A spectacle, I mean. I can’t tear my eyes away.”

“You and Sylvain…” says Byleth with a long-suffering sigh.

“Hey, don’t lump me in with _him_ ,” Claude protests. “Besides, I actually like you as a person. I don’t resent you for your crest like he does.” No reaction to that, which is interesting. He’d figured that she would be surprised, maybe even worried that he’d know this. But she just tugs her hand a little, growing impatient with him. Claude tightens his grip. “Your looks are just an added perk.”

The sword slashes up at him from a low angle. It stops just short of his face, a pointed threat even when it’s wielded by her non-dominant hand.

“See?” says Claude. “Fascinating.”

  
  


-

  
  


She treats him more warily after that.

It’s to be expected. Byleth is a mercenary, an ashen demon who’s seen more death than all of her students combined, so she knows danger down to her very bones. If it were anyone else, Claude would have lost interest long ago, written her off as a failure. But it’s not. It’s her, so her unease around him only makes him want more.

After the Goddess’ Rite of Rebirth, after Byleth obtains the Sword of the Creator like some shining heroine of legend, all of Claude’s greedy instincts are vindicated and proved deliciously right. She _is_ special, she is absolutely worth the hyperfixation and furtive looks. She’s the missing piece to his plan for Fodlan, only she doesn’t know it just yet.

“Teach,” says Claude, keeping his voice low in the library. Byleth pointedly ignores him, drifting along the shelves in search of a book. “I know you hear me,” he sing-songs.

“Office hours are tomorrow,” she says briskly. “Right after class.”

“Thanks, but I’m not here to get help on my homework.”

“Aren’t you?” says Byleth. “Manuela told me that you failed your last certification exam.”

Professor Manuela needs to keep her mouth shut, he doesn’t say. “That I did,” he sighs. “Guess I just don’t mesh well with Professor Manuela’s teaching methods.”

“That sounds like your problem, not hers.”

“You’re very fond of pointing out my problems,” says Claude drily. He leans against the shelf that Byleth is currently searching through. No one else is in their section, but Claude scans the area just in case.

“You have many,” says Byleth. “It’s my job to help you grow.”

“Then I have a favor to ask,” he says smoothly. She stares at him from beneath her long lashes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Tea,” he says.

“We’ve had tea before, Claude. On your birthday.”

“Not in your quarters,” says Claude. “I’d like to meet you there, if you don’t mind.”

“Why?” There’s a note of curiosity in her voice that sends a thrill up his spine. Byleth searches his eyes for some kind of answer, but it won’t do her any good.

“I could use some advice,” says Claude.

“Why would I ever agree to that,” Byleth says. “You have no business spending time in my quarters.”

Claude tries to recall every other time he’s ever won a girl over and made it back to her room. He remembers the slow, purposeful kiss he’d given to the daughter of a minor Alliance noble just outside her father’s study, and how eagerly she had reached for his breeches. He remembers the jangle of coins in his pocket as he’d fucked the wife of a respected knight from Kingdom territory while her husband was away.

He can’t pull the same stunt on Byleth. There’s no wounded look or solicitous smile that will unlock her secrets for him. She’s uncrackable, she’s inhuman. She won’t bend, and she certainly won’t break.

“Tomorrow,” she says, startling him from his thoughts. “Come to my room after dark.”

“Sure thing,” says Claude with a delighted grin.

  
  


-

  
  


“It’s lighter than I thought it would be,” says Claude, weighing the Sword of the Creator in his hands. He swings it through the air in an easy arc, listening to its strange steel sing.

“If you tried to wield it in battle, it would be impossible to lift,” says Byleth from her bed. She sits on the edge of it in her lounge clothes, arms folded against her chest.

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes. I’ve seen it happen.”

“To whom?”

“Dimitri,” she says simply.

Claude hands it back to her with no small amount of wonder. She looks at him strangely for a moment, perhaps reading his greed for what it is, before turning to store the sword beneath her bed.

“Tea,” says Byleth. She heads to her desk for a few canisters of tea leaves. Claude watches her lift a tin of Almyran Pine Needles with a smile. So thoughtful, even when he’s imposing on her like this.

“I’m glad to have this time with you,” he tells her once they’re both seated. Her desk is no larger than his own, but cleared of all clutter it makes for a halfway decent table.

“What do you want?” she asks him. Blunt as ever. She really does make it easy for him.

“If I’m completely honest,” he says, taking a sip of his tea. “You.”

“Speak to Manuela first,” says Byleth with a sigh. “Although I doubt Seteth would allow the House Leader of the Golden Deer to—”

“I’m not interested in joining the Blue Lions,” Claude interrupts, grinning in spite of himself. “Believe me, Teach, I’d love to transfer to your class, but this isn’t about my preferred type of pedagogy.”

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“What is it about,” she says.

“It’s about us.”

The look she gives him is _devastating_. It’s cold and unimpressed, an older woman’s disdain. He almost lets slip the anger he feels until he remembers to wrestle a smile back onto his face.

“I’m your professor,” Byleth says. “And I’m older than you.”

“Only for five more moons, and yes, but just barely,” says Claude dismissively.

“Hilda is nice,” says Byleth after a moment. “So is Marianne.”

“Are you playing matchmaker for my sake? With your own students?”

“I’m trying to defuse the situation,” says Byleth. “You need to redirect this interest elsewhere. I’m not the one you want.”

Claude leans forward. “Of course you are,” he says, warm and engaging. “I’m only interested in you.”

Byleth looks away. She drums her fingers against her desk, ignoring the cup of tea sitting just to her right.

“How do you work off steam?” Claude prods.

“Through training,” says Byleth, because it’s obvious. Low-hanging fruit. “And sometimes I go to the sauna. Or I fish.”

“Or you have tea with your favorite student.”

Byleth slants him a look that says ‘ _try me, you little shit’_ without having to open her mouth. It delights him, but he hides just how much.

“How about your… other needs?” he asks.

“I don’t have other needs.”

“Don’t you? You’re only human, after all. At least I think you are.”

Byleth seems to mull this over for a second. “If I did,” she says slowly, “I wouldn’t go to you to fulfill them.”

Claude huffs a laugh. “That’s cold, Teach.”

She lifts her cup from its saucer and finally takes a sip, shrugging indifferently.

“What if you tried me once,” he says. “And made up your mind after that.”

Byleth clicks her tongue.

“It’s past your bedtime,” she says, standing up.

“Hardly,” he says. “And I think you know that.”

“You’re seventeen,” she says impassively.

“Eighteen.”

“You’re not nearly as suave as you think you are,” she continues, ignoring him. “Maybe this little routine has worked on other women before, but it’s doing nothing for me. I’m not interested, Claude.”

She strides over to her door and holds it open.

Claude stares at her, transfixed.

“I expected this from Sylvain,” she says, “but not from you.”

And there’s his opening.

“What _did_ you expect?”

Byleth raises her eyebrows. “What did I…” she repeats. “Not this,” she settles on saying.

He makes a show of considering this. “Did you expect roses?” he asks. “Because I can grab some from Lorenz, no problem. D’you have a favorite color?”

The stare she gives him is her coldest yet.

Claude scans her room while he bides his time. She could easily remove him if she really wanted to. He’s seen her choke men twice his size.

“Or maybe it’s gold you’re after,” he says, smiling.

Nothing. No flinch, no righteous fury and shaking fists. A hardened mercenary, through and through.

She shuts the door behind her slowly, much to his glee.

“So it’s gold after all,” he says, watching her as she approaches. “Should’ve known.”

Byleth stops in front of him, eyes narrowed and dark.

“Claude,” she says quietly.

She grabs his chin between thumb and forefinger and tilts his face up. As she draws nearer and nearer, Claude swallows, shifting in his chair.

Byleth lowers her face to his.

Her proximity is electrifying and heady. Claude struggles not to grin wolfishly, thrilled beyond measure to have things turn so quickly in his favor. He’s wanted her for so long--since he’d first laid eyes on her blood-splattered face after that skirmish in Remire.

“I don’t sleep with boys,” Byleth says. Her eyes fall to his mouth. “This is the last time I’ll say this.”

Claude blinks.

“Now _get out_ ,” she commands.

The instant she steps back, Claude shoots to his feet and edges over to the door. There’s something to be said for beating a strategic retreat. He knows a lost cause when he sees one.

“Fine,” he says, pushing a hand through his hair, trying to inject the usual insouciance into his voice. “Just thought I’d be upfront about it. You seem like the type to appreciate that.”

“Good night, Claude.”

“I’m being sincere, you know,” he tells her, keeping his voice low, one hand poised on the door handle. “I want you to remember this later. I’ve always wanted you on my side.”

“You want the Sword of the Creator on your side,” she says.

“No, I want—” His words fail him for the first time. This, more than anything else he’s tried tonight, makes Byleth’s face soften.

“You have allies,” she says quietly. “You’re not alone.”

“Of course,” he says too easily. His lungs are filled with ice.

“Good night, Claude,” she says again, ushering him out.

“Good night,” he repeats just as the door shuts behind him.

  
  


-

  
  


Their late-night rendezvous does nothing to quell his obsession with her. It makes it worse, because that’s just how things roll for him.

“Claude,” calls Professor Manuela, rapping her knuckles on his desk.

Claude blinks up at her. “Yes?”

Laughter ripples around him. Professor Manuela frowns and folds her arms across her chest. Claude, in a bid to seem contrite, lowers his gaze and turns away.

“Stratagems that rely on onagers,” she says curtly. “What are their advantages and disadvantages? Quickly now, or I’ll lose my temper.”

  
  


-

  
  


Petra gasps as he grinds their hips together. “C-Claude,” she stammers. “Do not—ah!—be d-doing that.”

“But you make such cute sounds when I do,” he laughs, grabbing her hips again. Her breathy giggles echo in between their chests.

“You cannot be going inside this time,” she murmurs. “P-please, I do not want to be washing again.”

They’re hidden behind the manicured hedges by the Knights’ Hall, thick foliage covering them well, but there’s still enough space between certain branches to see to the other side.

Petra sighs and rolls her hips against his again, hair falling into her mouth. She’s always been stupidly hot, but when she’s undressed like this, it’s almost too much for him to handle.

“Professor! I’ve been looking for you,” says Ashe only a few feet away. Two pairs of boots come to a stop in front of their particular hedge. Petra gasps and Claude hushes her, the two of them freezing in their spot.

“Hello, Ashe,” says Byleth. The fondness in her voice makes her sound like a completely different person.

Petra whimpers as he thrusts up into her all of a sudden.

Ashe spins around on his heel. “W-what was that?”

Claude thrusts up into Petra again and she smacks him out of fear and arousal, her eyes desperate and dark.

“...It’s nothing,” says Byleth in a strange voice. “Let’s talk on the way to the greenhouse, shall we?”

  
  


-

  
  


After their stunning victory at the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, the Blue Lions are unbearably triumphant. Claude ignores Dimitri’s good mood around the monastery and deliberately avoids the Professor. It wouldn’t do to snap at her, not after he’s worked so hard to get his feelings under control. But a part of him also longs to tear her up.

During her guest lectures, it’s all he can do to stop himself from reaching into his smallclothes in class. He sits in the last row, all the way in the back, with this precise thought in his mind.

Byleth doesn’t seem to care at all; she goes on teaching as she normally would. It’s only Claude that can barely stand to look at her.

At night, he masturbates to his memories of her beneath him, picturing the delicate spray of her eyelashes and the muted pink of her tongue. Their proximity that night had probably ruined him, made it impossible for him to fantasize about anyone else. Petra, who’s only interested in the occasional fuck to decompress after training, has no issue with spending time apart. It’s why he’d sought her out in the first place: she’s low-fuss, discreet, and absolutely wild in bed.

Dorothea would have been his next choice, but something tells him that she wouldn’t be half as flexible (literally) as Petra. Dorothea would break him in two if he let her.

Leonie would even make for a decent lay if she’d quit mooning over Jeralt for a bit. Once or twice he’s even considered Raphael, being held in those brawny arms, fat cock filling him up to the hilt. Raphael wouldn’t be needy and passive aggressive with him. He’d be kind, upfront, and cheery to a fault. But he’d be a pain to break up with for precisely these reasons.

Hilda would be down for it, but she’d complain the whole time and make him do most of the work. Claude would prefer to avoid dalliances with pseudo-retainers—the stakes are too high if he screws things up.

Byleth is what he aches for, but she’s so far out of reach. He strokes himself with her face in mind, then her chest, then her…

He wakes up far too often with his legs twined in his sheets, sweat slicking his hair to his forehead and smallclothes sticky and wet. When he’s not dreaming of her, he’s masturbating to the thought of her. It’s disgusting and shameful, a fusty little secret that he’ll keep forever in the dark. But for whatever reason, he just can’t shake her.


	2. Chapter 2

Shamir regards him with stony silence, a single arched brow the only sign she’s listening.

“Remire?” she asks. “Not my call. Ask your professor.”

“I’m afraid our Head of House won’t let me do as I please,” says Claude with a casual shrug, trying his best to be loose and laidback. Shamir scents blood from miles away, predatory and knife-sharp, a shark in deep ocean waters. It’s a different kind of intuition than what Almyrans grow up with; Dagdans are a colder people, ruthless and steely, dispensing with honor at first chance when the situation calls for it. They are a people that know what it is to be conquered, to be ground down into the blood-soaked dirt. They know how to fight, but more importantly, they know how to _survive._

Khalid’s father sent him to Dagda once with an emissary, just for a short trip. He’d taken his wyvern and a burlap sack of his personal belongings, and spent the entire trip chasing after milk-skinned girls. He still has the scar from the time he’d flirted with the wrong girl, a girl with navy-colored hair and wild eyes that rivaled the professor’s.

Shamir and Byleth complement each other, but Shamir’s eyes linger on him in ways that Byleth’s do not.

Of course he uses this to his advantage. It would be wrong not to.

“Join me for coffee later,” he asks her, lips quirking slightly.

Shamir’s eyes flash with mirth. They’re easily the most expressive part of her.

“You’re buying,” she tells him.

  
  


-

  
  


“Claude,” says Dimitri. “Well met. Are you here to train?”

“Something like that,” says Claude easily. Dimitri nods, too trusting for it to be any fun, but Claude admittedly appreciates his idiocy at choice times.

Dimitri readies his lance, pointing its sharp end at an invisible enemy. He moves like a much larger man, a beast in a soft human body, and fights with a wicked gleam in his eyes that have doubtless seen too much. Claude wonders if Byleth ever has to cut him off. If she has to jam the hilt of her sword into his solar plexus, make him see stars, just to calm him down from his crazed frenzy.

Dimitri is _Fodlan_ , Dimitri is so princely that it hurts to look at him. He is literary, he belongs in stories, in the soft watercolor pages of children’s storybooks.

Dimitri smiles at Byleth like she is his world.

“Have you ever tried your hand at a bow?” Claude asks him, leaning casually against a nearby pillar.

Dimitri shakes the sweat from his eyes and looks over. “Why, yes,” he says, earnest blue eyes peering at him so innocently. “All Kingdom nobles are required to do so. Why do you ask?”

“Would you mind giving me a demonstration?” asks Claude with an easy smile. If it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, no one needs to know. Dimitri certainly doesn’t.

Dimitri lifts the practice bow with his powerful arms and draws the bowstring taut, his posture stiff and stately, form-perfect, but clearly not his forte. He hits the bullseye anyway, because this is _Dimitri_ , how could he not.

The Almyrans use bows like an extension of their own bodies. The Fodlanese use them like an afterthought, a middling second choice. Far too indirect, not heroic enough. A coward’s game.

“Beautiful form, Your Highness,” says Claude, applauding earnestly. Dimitri lowers his bow and glances at him, brows furrowed in confusion. “Looks like I have much to learn.”

“Claude, please,” says Dimitri, shaking his head. “I am by no means your equal.”

 _You don’t know the half of it,_ Claude wants to say, but his lips stretch into an even wider smile, keeping the words in. Pick your battles. You’re speaking with _royalty_ , here.

“I heard from the Professor that you’ll be joining us in Remire later this moon,” Dimitri says, setting his bow down in favor of picking up his lance again. His shoulders fall back, his posture tightens. He really does look better waving pointy sticks around, Claude has to give him that.

“That’s right,” says Claude, nodding. “Couldn’t let you Lions have all the fun.”

A flash of anger crosses Dimitri’s face. “I would not call it _fun_ ,” he says, eyes darkening for just a moment.

Claude stays silent, studying him. Ah, so there it is. The darkness, the muffled childhood pain. Ghosts clinging to his weary shoulders, weighing him down with their vicious memories and cloying secrets. He fits the brooding antihero well, rugged and beautiful, a literary figure doted on by both author and fans; Dimitri will be given a powerful redemption arc, a man transformed from years of grisly bloodshed and harrowing trauma.

“You’re right,” says Claude quietly. “It isn’t.”

  
  


-

  
  


Hell is empty and all the devils are in Remire.

Dimitri takes a strangled breath, fists shaking at his sides. The other Lions stare at him in worry and shock. Byleth glances at him grimly, a hint of exasperated understanding in her eyes. Out of all of them, she is the most unfazed by the towering flames and screaming villagers, a hardened mercenary who’s truly seen it all. Still, Claude can’t help but notice the slight tremor in her hand as she reaches for Dimitri’s shoulder.

Given the wretched state of him, one would think that Dimitri would snarl and jerk away, too feral by half to accept a woman’s soft touch. But he doesn’t. He lets her. This, more than anything else Claude has seen between these two, makes jealousy spill white-hot into his chest.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Byleth tells him. Her voice is so _intimate._ Maternal.

Dimitri shakes the ghosts from his eyes. “I’m fine,” he tells her.

Tomas is so predictable it’s funny, although with all the civilians dying by Claude’s bow and Dimitri’s wild lance, there isn’t much room for laughter. A young girl with twintails and a freckle on her chin comes snarling after Annette, who stands barely taller than her, and Mercedes screams from afar as her best friend gets bitten into like a piece of meat.

Ashe shoots her just in time. The arrow slices through her ribcage, spearing her tiny heart. She slumps to the ground, hollow-eyed and empty, like a puppet with its strings cut.

When the Death Knight shows up, Byleth abandons her post and charges right for him. She’s _fast_ , alarmingly so, speedier than Felix or Ingrid or even himself, legs carrying her like a wolf’s through the dark forest at night.

The Death Knight, like the Flame Emperor--and really, who did Edelgard think she was kidding, with a name and getup like that? _Dimitri_? Probably--says his weird, dramatic supervillain piece, raising his evil black lance high above his head. The way he addresses Byleth is sinfully sexual, in some ways: he only wants _her._ No one else will sate him. Okay there, buddy.

Byleth whips the Sword of the Creator through his chest armor, drawing blood. The Death Knight warps away in a flash of blinding purple light, as he’s wont to do. Byleth doesn’t wait long before she’s darting over to the next gaggle of Flame Emperor goons, mages with spectral masks and spells that sew one’s feet into the loamy, blood-soaked ground.

“Professor! On your right!” shouts Sylvain, swiveling his steed around so that he can charge over to her.

An axe-wielding brigand leaps out of the bushes without Byleth noticing. She spins around, eyes wide and teeth bared in a snarl, animalistic and _furious_ , but her Sword of the Creator hasn’t retracted from where it’s lodged in a dark mage’s shoulder.

Claude’s arrow splits the brigand’s head in two like a ripe watermelon. It falls in two sickening wet plops to the ground.

Byleth’s sword returns to her side seconds later. She shakes the dark blood off of her hands and turns to look at him.

“Thank you,” she says, disturbingly calm. Too calm.

“Thank me later,” says Claude with a wink, and the glint of gratitude in her eyes winks out completely.

  
  


-

  
  


Back at the monastery, every single one of the Lions is devastated. They retire to their rooms in full armor, too soul-weary and heartbroken to do much else.

Claude chances upon Dimitri and Byleth at the stairwell just before the stables.

“--could have _died_ ,” says Dimitri brokenly, his voice scraped raw.

Claude eases back out of sight, content to eavesdrop until the time is ripe to interrupt them. Half of his tactics rely on reconnaissance and perfect timing; he knows all too well how important entrances are.

“I’m fine, Dimitri,” says Byleth firmly. Out of the corner of his eye, just slightly out of his line of sight, Claude sees Byleth rest a hand on Dimitri’s shaking shoulder again.

They look like lovers, standing like this. Dimitri is only a few moons younger than he is, so by Byleth’s own rule he cannot _have_ her, cannot lay with her like he so clearly wants to. And really, would anyone at the monastery _not_ ? Even shy little Bernadetta looks after Byleth with such sparkly, adoring eyes. Any day now, she’ll defect from the Black Eagles and join Faerghus properly. And it won’t be for geopolitics or lifelong friendships or even baseline survival; it will be for _her_ , for Byleth, for love. An insecure young woman’s starry-eyed worship of a goddess, a figure so bright she hurts to look at.

It’s fitting, then, that Edelgard would flay Bernadetta alive if she were to abandon her station. If there is anyone else at the Officer’s Academy who hungers for Byleth as Claude does, it’s _her._ She doesn't even bother trying to hide it.

“I cannot lose you,” Dimitri says, shaken and small. An orphaned boy with no relatives to turn to. “Please. Not you as well.”

Byleth murmurs something Claude can’t hear.

Of course this is the time to make his grand entrance.

“Teach! Your Highness! I've been looking for you two all over the place,” says Claude in his cheeriest voice. The two of them look over, alarmed. Dimitri turns bright red and hastily steps away from Byleth.

Byleth stays where she is, a wry little frown on her face. Nothing gets past her, does it.

“What do you need, Claude,” she says.

“Oh, you know. Just searching for the professor who’s leading today’s seminar on battalions and swordplay.”

Byleth’s eyes widen. It’s actually hilarious, seeing her like this; she has no issue shaking enemy blood off her hands or stepping over the cooling corpses of children, but being late for class is jarring and _bad_.

She looks at Dimitri one last time, expression pinched and apologetic, but says nothing as she slips away to the classrooms.

Dimitri stares at Claude like he’s more concept than person, an image come to haunt him in broad daylight. With one more push, the regal prince of Faerghus will snap and see precisely that: ghouls and shadows in the waking hours, blurred shapes hounding him at every turn.

  
  


-

  
  


After all the bloodshed, of course Lady Rhea announces a ball.

“The White Heron Cup is an important tradition here at the monastery,” Professor Manuela announces in class. Her kitten heels click over the tiles as she paces back and forth, swinging her pointer to punctuate what she’s saying. “Who here would like to represent the Golden Deer for this year’s competition?”

Hilda, who _never raises her hand in class_ , raises her hand. The thing damn near shoots up before Professor Manuela can even finish speaking.

“Ooh, ooh, me, Professor! Please, pick me!” cries Hilda, practically bouncing in her seat. Lysithea, who sits right next to her, slants her the wryest, most judgmental look ever. Marianne, who sits right in front of them both, tries to curl herself into an even smaller ball.

Ironically enough, Marianne would probably do a better job than Hilda at this. She’s slower than most of their classmates, and her white magic and affinity for horses make her a natural fit for Holy Knighthood instead, but she’d make a decent Dancer, too. She’d just have to do something about the stage fright.

It’s easy to guess that Dorothea will represent the Black Eagles. The Blue Lions, however…

“We’ll take a vote, then, shall we?” says Professor Manuela with an extravagant smile. She’s doing her best to not snap at them all for having the young love she so desperately craves, but if she bends her pointer any harder, it’s definitely going to break.

  
  


-

  
  


“Me,” says Claude with an exhausted sigh.

“ _You_ ,” says Hilda with a disgusted one. “You can’t dance _at all_.”

“You’ve never even seen me dance, Hilda.”

“Haven’t I? I’ve watched you fall over yourself when running away from Brawlers in battle.”

“ _You_ run away from them, too.”

“I pick my battles,” says Hilda sweetly, baring her fangs. She looks so angry right now, but there’s nothing to be done. Some genius put Claude’s name in the hat, and then Professor Manuela had reached in and withdrawn that precise scrap of paper.

It was probably Hilda, to be perfectly honest.

“Who will you even practice with?” Hilda asks him as they walk past the greenhouse to the dorms. Claude needs to change if he’s going to sweat it out in the courtyard; Hilda just wants a nap.

“Professor Manuela, I suppose,” says Claude with a shrug. Of course, he has no intention of following through with that. He’d sooner dance with Professor Hanneman than Professor Manuela. She _still_ hasn’t forgiven him for failing the Lord certification exam that one time, even when he’d quickly passed the Assassin exam right after.

“You should ask Professor Byleth,” says Hilda slyly.

Claude humors her with a half-hearted grin. Of course she’d know about his little pastime, his current obsession; it’s why she’s his right-hand woman.

“Think I just might,” says Claude agreeably.

  
  


-

  
  


“No,” says Byleth.

Felix, who looks like an angry cat doused in icy water, radiates pure hatred from over Byleth’s shoulder. He’s clearly ready to bolt at first opportunity. Claude has no idea how Byleth managed to rope him into this.

“C’mon, Teach,” says Claude, linking his arms behind his head. He tries to think of a convincing reason. “You wanted to thank me, didn’t you?”

Byleth’s eyes flicker with irritation, but she doesn’t shoot him down in flames at once.

“...one dance,” she mutters, sending Felix an apologetic look. Felix almost jumps for joy, except not, because he’s Felix. He just scowls and slinks away like an alley cat instead.

Professor Hanneman and Professor Manuela have left by now, and the remaining students who’d come to make fun of their uncoordinated friends have walked after them. Before long, only Claude and Byleth are left in the courtyard, the two of them moving in a seamless circle around the grass.

“You’re good at this,” Byleth observes. She sounds so disgruntled when paying him a compliment. Claude barks a laugh, too slow to mask it. It makes Byleth blink at him, momentarily stunned.

“I’ve been training since I was small,” he tells her, dipping her back with ease. Her dark hair slides over her shoulders and exposes her soft, lily-white neck.

“Then you don’t need to practice,” says Byleth with a sigh, rising up again.

“I do,” hums Claude. “I’m rusty, and besides, I could use any excuse to spend some alone time with you.”

Byleth immediately jams her boot into his right shoe. Claude hisses.

“You never learn, do you,” she says without humor. “I thought maybe I’d finally gotten through to you.”

“You’ve done no such thing, Teach,” he says, wincing at the throbbing pain in his foot. Those boots are _sharp._ How the hell did she run around in them? How did she kill other people while wearing them? “I’m as determined as ever.”

“There are other Relics,” she tells him. They stop dancing now, long past the point of needing its pleasant farce. “You don’t need mine.”

“It isn’t about the Relics,” says Claude.

“What is it about?”

Claude hesitates. She doesn’t soften this time, doesn’t give him a chance to win her over.

For the first time since they’ve met, Claude wonders if she’s racist _._ If she sneers at him but smiles at Ashe because Ashe is _white,_ Ashe is _Dimitri_ , Ashe is _Fodlan._ Even little white beggar boys are better than dirty, dark-skinned Almyrans.

But thinking like that gets him nowhere. It chokes him, it renders him mute.

“It’s about Fodlan,” he says.

Across the courtyard, on the stone path that leads to the dining hall, they both glimpse Cyril lugging a rust-spotted water pail through the garden.

“And Almyra,” says Byleth quietly, turning to level him with a piercing stare.

“You really are quite the strategist,” he tells her with a shaky grin. “And to think, some of us thought you were just a pretty face.”

“Insulting me isn’t going to win you any favors,” says Byleth, narrowing her eyes.

“I wasn’t. I was paying you a compliment, Teach. Promise,” he tells her, but there’s no real conviction in it. She’ll interpret his silver tongue however she wants, and what she wants is hostility, what she wants is for him to shut up. She does not trust him, not for one second, and this is precisely why he trusts her _._

“You know, there’s a myth about the Goddess Tower,” he says. Byleth sighs and scrubs a hand over her face, utterly fed up. Claude doesn’t take the hint. “I was thinking about meeting you there on the night of the ball, if you don’t mind.”

“Grow up, Claude,” she says simply. With one last frown, she spins on her heel and walks away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please mind the tags; they've been updated.

Dimitri dances with a stiff back and gentle eyes. His partner, a dainty little flower from the Golden Deer, gazes up at him with poorly hidden wonder. She’s worshipful and besotted, thrilled to be his, even if it’s only for tonight.

Edelgard’s partner looks _terrified._ He keeps glancing fretfully at Hubert, who emanates dark tendrils of hate and scorn from his corner by the refreshments.

Byleth is nowhere to be found. Claude gives up on looking for her after an hour or so, irritated by how needy he is. Has it really come to this? Limerence and schoolgirl pining, a crush that consumes everything else?

He dances with Hilda because she asks him to. She’s graceful and happy in his arms, twirling in her flowy pink dress, smiling over his shoulder at her adoring fans.

“You don’t have to pity me, you know,” says Claude drily, spinning her around so that she can’t see her googly-eyed lover boys. And girls. Hilda frowns, and it isn’t cute.

“But you’re so _pitiful_ ,” she says through her teeth, definitely cackling inside. Her eyes have such a wicked glee to them. Holst must be so relieved now that she’s the monastery’s problem. “I couldn’t bear to watch you mope around in the shadows.”

“I wasn’t moping.”

“Uh huh,” says Hilda dismissively. She spots Marianne hiding over by Ignatz and Ashe and immediately perks up. “Bye Claude,” she chirps, abandoning him mid-step. Fuck, Hilda.

Petra takes her place. “Hello, Claude,” she says, and god, if that isn’t a _killer_ smile.

“You’re evil, you know that.”

“I am not thinking so,” Petra giggles. “Actually, I am being rather kind.”

“Don’t tell me,” says Claude with a wry smile, turning her in an easy circle. “You’re here because you pity me, too?”

“Not pity,” says Petra, growing serious. Her eyes search his. “The professor is asking for you.”

His heart leaps. “Byleth?”

Petra nods.

Right on cue, their musical number ends. Everyone takes a polite step back to applaud the musicians. Petra looks at a loss here, baffled by these stiff Fodlanese customs, but she smiles when Claude mouths ‘thank you’ on his way out.

-

“Teach,” says Claude. “I’m not hallucinating, am I?”

Byleth turns around. She’s wearing her usual attire, dark gray cloak and glinting armor. It’s only a little disappointing. Tights like those are hardly anything to complain about; he dreams about them nightly. But he’s still hungry to see her in a gown, soft curves swathed in delicate fabric, collarbones gleaming in the gentle starlight.

“Ah. Claude,” she says. Her smile catches him off guard.

“...This isn’t an assassination attempt, right?”

Byleth furrows her brow. “What,” she says with a gusty sigh, and they’re back in familiar territory.

“Petra said you called for me,” says Claude, leaning back against the lip of a rampart. It’s actually rather precarious if he looks straight down. One wrong move, and he’d be a little more than a golden-smudged stain on the rocks.

“I wanted to apologize to you,” says Byleth, like a complete stranger.

Claude’s mouth goes dry. What is even happening right now. “Come again?”

“I’m sorry, Claude,” she says. She must mean it, because there’s no anger in her eyes, no dagger glinting from her waist.

Claude’s lips feel numb. His insides are filled with ice. It’s a familiar sensation by now, one that only she can produce in him. How quaint.

“I don’t follow,” he says, frowning. “...What are you sorry for?”

She holds out a hand. Claude boggles down at it, half-convinced it’s a trick, a precursor to murder. She’s going to yank him close and shove the glowing Sword of the Creator right through his heart.

“I’m on your side,” she tells him, eyes soft.

His throat closes up.

“No,” he says, backing away.

She’s a stranger. A mouth and two dark eyes. A specter from his boyhood nightmares, only beautiful and terrible in equal measure.

(She looks like his mother.)

He wants to run _._ He wants to be anywhere but here. Not Fodlan, not Garreg Mach, not lost and eighteen and _Almyran_ with Byleth, with this woman who so effortlessly brings his heart to its knees. She’s not a goddess, this is not her tower, this is wrong, wrong, wrong--

“Claude?”

He lunges for her.

Her mercenary instincts can’t stop him, because he’s not a student right now--he’s a wild, branded thing with the mark of Cain, a boy raised by wolves in the mountains over yonder.

He crushes her face against his chest and holds her tight.

His entire body aches for his mother.

“You were _wrong_ ,” he tells her, voice breaking. So small. This is what Dimitri had sounded like. This is what he’d so gleefully interrupted just the other day.

Byleth doesn’t knife him in the gut. She doesn’t knee him in the groin, doesn’t jam her pointy heel into his shoe.

She holds him.

“About what,” she asks softly.

He sighs, lips snug against her soft pink ear. A foreigner’s ear. His mother’s ear.

“I _am_ alone,” he tells her.

-

Then she falls, and everything is lost.

-

The years crawl by on bloody stumps.

Claude kills. He’s been trained for this. They all were, even when they weren’t actively plunging cold steel through soft human flesh.

‘ _Claude, do not be rash,_ ’ Lorenz commands him in a floridly written letter. The parchment smells like crushed roses and rust. ‘ _You are our leader now. Do not risk your neck for an impulsive schoolboy crush._

_She is gone._

_You are not the only one who misses her.’_

It feels like he is, though.

The others have moved on. Hilda returns home and refuses a steady stream of suitors, handling House affairs on her own as Holst deploys for bloodier matters. Holst is tasked with the Almyran problem, which has become unruly and dangerous in the years since Garreg Mach has fallen. (Claude has Nader keep tabs on him. “Cut his arms off if you must, but you’ll have to answer to Hilda if you do anything more.”) Nobody from the Alliance has laid eyes on Edelgard, let alone on each other. According to Claude’s sources, Lysithea is the only one who has vanished from all records; none of the Deer know where she’s gone.

Claude has an idea. Lysithea’s ghost-white locks resemble the Emperor’s too much for it to be a coincidence. And they both have the same barren eyes. Wastelands. Terrible power, too much, packed into petite little-girl bodies.

Claude writes letter after letter. He sprains his wrist and learns ambidexterity. Judith harangues him. Nader visits incognito with presents (Claude’s preferred type of arrow, Almyran-made, and a tear-stained letter from his mother, untouched and still encased in its envelope) and newly forged armor for Claude’s wyvern, a frost-white beauty. She’s fully grown now, her wingspan larger than life and her talons the size of Claude’s head. She’s terrible to behold on the battlefield, screeching and raging, an eldritch beast right out of the darkest fairy tales. She flies with the sun’s rays glinting off her pearly scales, and her massive shadow shrouds everyone beneath her—and who _isn’t_ beneath her—in darkness. She wouldn’t even need his bow to rip half an army to shreds. He could nap in her saddle and wake up to half the war already over.

He names her Byleth, and this is only a little cruel.

-

“I’m not so sure about this, Claude,” says Hilda.

“When are you ever sure about anything,” Claude laughs.

“I always am. It’s how I operate,” she says with a grimace. Seeing this, he wonders when her own smiles had stopped meeting her eyes. This god-awful war has made someone as lazy as _Hilda von Goneril_ a sleep-deprived wreck.

She nevertheless wears bright, eye-catching pink and fucking eyeshadow to the battlefield, because really, what else would she do. Hilda is forever Hilda, she’s not going to let impending death crush her stubborn spirit. ‘ _If I have to die today, I at least want to look_ good,’ she’d told him.

More besides, she wants Marianne to fucking jump her the instant they see each other.

“I’m thinking of getting a trim,” says Hilda, twirling a strand of her long pink hair. “Know any good hairdressers?”

Claude ignores her in favor of scanning the skies. Byleth wouldn’t return as a dragon, would she?

Could he love a dragon? (Of course he could. Don’t be stupid, Claude.)

Could he love _her_?

“You’ve got it bad, Claude,” says Hilda gently. He marvels at how much older she sounds. She wears her five extra years well, but then, Hilda has always been devastatingly fashionable.

“She’ll be here,” he says with quiet conviction. Byleth—the other Byleth, the one with literal wings—preens herself like a pigeon in the hollowed-out innards of an abandoned turret. She’s ready to fly at a moment’s notice; he only needs to whistle at just the right pitch.

-

Byleth wakes up.

“Sothis,” she murmurs sleepily. “Mother.”

“Get on your feet,” someone says harshly.

It aches to return so quickly.

-

Garreg Mach is no more. It’s a charred pit of land, a glaring eyesore. Scorched earth and fallen idols.

Byleth picks her way through the abandoned town and hurries along the familiar path to the monastery. At least the trees are the same, their swaying branches indifferent to the wreckage left behind by mankind.

Claude is waiting for her at the top of the Goddess Tower.

At least, she _thinks_ it’s Claude.

“You’re late,” he says warmly.

“You’re... different,” Byleth says.

His eyes appraise her hungrily, but there’s nothing sly or wily about them now; these are a man’s eyes, a leader’s eyes. He’s grown into that outsized confidence. He looks the part, and he probably acts the part, too.

“I’m older than you now,” says Claude, smiling roguishly. “You don’t look a day over twenty.”

“Twenty-two,” she says without thinking. (Who knows if this is actually right.) He’s become far too handsome, painfully so. His golden garments only enhance the bronze glow of his skin and all of his beautiful, aching symmetry. He’s both Apollonian and sumptuously dark, eyes greener than the deepest of forests.

She could do without the tiny scrim of a beard, though.

Claude isn’t alone. Dimitri kneels on the ground behind him, a broken lance still clutched tightly in his fist. He breathes like a wounded thing, a fanged beast with one too many arrows protruding from its soft underbelly.

He looks up as Byleth approaches.

“I knew one day you would come to haunt me as well,” Dimitri rasps. He sounds like death.

“Now now, Dimitri,” says Claude, like they’re all sitting together around the table for tea and crumpets. For fuck’s sake, Claude. “That’s no way to speak to the goddess, now is it?”

“She’s no _goddess_ ,” Dimitri snarls, raising his lance with a roar. “And you--! You are a _menace_ , a sham of a man. You traitorous swine, coming back to the kingdom that was never yours--”

Byleth slaps him cleanly across the face.

Claude and Dimitri both stare at her in shock. They look like lost schoolboys again. Goddess above, grant her the patience to get them through this war. These two idiots will surely be the death of her. All they need now is Edelgard, and they’ll have a complete set.

“This is his birthright, too,” Byleth says harshly, staring down at Dimitri with poorly concealed bitterness. He is not himself, not anymore. Or he is _exactly_ himself, and there is nothing any of them can do about it.

There’s no pithy comeback from Claude—another marked difference. Maybe he really has grown up. If she squints, there’s even a hint of heartfelt surprise in his expression.

Claude flashes her a smile. (It reaches his eyes.) “Hungry, Teach? Let’s have a bite to eat before we head out for some light murder,” he says.

Never mind. He’s still the same mischief-making loon--

“Lead the way,” says Dimitri with a terrifying grin that eats up the corners of his face.

Claude and Byleth exchange a look.

“You just had to say the ‘M’ word, didn’t you,” Byleth sighs.

-

She’s rusty.

It’s comforting, sort of. No one wakes from a five-year slumber wholly intact. Not even the vessel of a goddess.

Byleth’s blade cuts men down to size. One by one, her little birds flock back to Garreg Mach: Ashe first with Gilbert right behind him, Mercedes and Annette after, and the infamous trio of Sylvain-Felix-Ingrid bringing up the rear.

Then Ignatz’s arrow slices through an assassin’s veiny neck, and the rest of the Golden Deer storm the grounds not long after.

It’s a bloody reunion, but that’s to be expected in wartime.

At least none of their own have died for this tiny skirmish.

Byleth’s powers are still the same, but without Sothis’ voice to guide her—heckling and girlish, a furious little sister—she feels bereft. Unmoored, painfully alone.

“You’ve returned,” gasps Mercedes, eyes watering as she clutches Byleth’s hands to her chest. Annette hugs them both and cry-laughs into Mercedes’s cream-colored shawl. All of the girls do, even Leonie and Hilda and sweet Marianne.

Lysithea’s absence chokes the air around them, fills their happy reunion with sorrow and dread. But for now, they rejoice, marveling at everyone’s outward changes. Ignatz is taller than her now, and so is Ashe. Her little archer boys are hardened killers with steady hands, eyes accustomed to the splatter of dark blood.

Marianne is so bright, so beautiful and womanly. Hilda grabs her hand and refuses to let go. Leonie takes one look at Byleth and winces in pain, jerking her head to the side as she swipes hastily at her face.

Right. Her father is dead. He is buried here.

The raw grief surprises her. She clears her throat, eyes prickling with tears.

Lorenz kisses her hand and thanks her for her service. “I always knew you would return, Professor,” he tells her. Claude rolls his eyes.

“How very frivolous of you,” snaps Dimitri at them all. Everyone falls silent. Felix’s eyes widen, anger flashing across his face, but Sylvain shakes his head and motions for him to step back.

“Your Highness,” says Gilbert.

“No,” says Dimitri. “Save your breath. I’m not here for your happy little reunions. I’m here for Edelgard’s severed _head_.”

“Okay then,” says Claude jauntily. The Deer and the Lions both turn to stare at him, more than a few pairs of eyebrows raising. Byleth heaves a sigh. Why is this man the new leader of the Alliance?

Claude smiles like he knows what she’s thinking.

“Shall we, Teach?”

What else can she do but nod?

-

Hilda and Gilbert team up to divide and conquer Garreg Mach. Byleth’s former students flock to neighboring towns for supplies. Ashe works alone in the greenhouse, coaxing tiny plants out of their hiding places. A few others trickle back as well: Yuri, who blushes so fetchingly when she thanks him for coming, and Bernadetta, who hugs her for an entire minute before dashing back to her room.

They dust off the tables in the Cardinals’ Room and shake the cobwebs out of every corner. War councils are convened here twice a week. Claude leads with grace and aplomb, silver tongue put to good use. Dimitri does not lead at all; he skulks around the church, snarling at any who come his way.

Claude calls her to the Advisory Room one day. They’re making progress on repairs, but war sucks the marrow from the land and its weary people; no one has anything to give, unless they are willing to murder them in cold blood for it.

They are not willing to murder in cold blood for it.

Not yet, anyway.

“You remember Judith, don’t you?” Claude asks her, frowning down at documents stacked on Seteth’s old desk. He doesn’t sit in the high-backed chair, instead pacing around it like an agitated tiger.

“Of course,” she says. It’s not easy to forget a woman like that.

“I’ve written to her requesting troops and supplies,” Claude continues, scribbling a note down on a scroll that is already heavy with dark ink. Byleth doesn’t recognize some of the script, their letters sloping and sinuous, flowing into each other like water.

“Is that Almyran?”

Claude glances at her. His eyes are clear and bright. He really is too handsome to look at directly, but she holds her ground.

“Full marks,” he tells her, smiling. She wonders how long it took him to practice this new version in the mirror. It’s almost too perfect, now; his smile seems to physically pull her in.

“You’re just as I remember you,” Claude says, abandoning his schemes for a moment. He leans against the desk with his arms folded, the better to study her freely.

“You’re not,” says Byleth.

Claude laughs. “So I’ve been told. Handsome, aren’t I?”

“Humble, too.”

“Ah, there she is.”

“There _who_ is.”

“My Teach,” says Claude warmly, canines flashing. His eyes never seem to leave her face. He’s gotten so shameless after five years, but then, ‘shame’ has never really been part of Claude’s vocabulary. “You never did let me seduce you.”

Of all the things… “Claude,” says Byleth, shutting her eyes.

“I’m older,” Claude says, voice light. He strides around the desk to stop right in front of her. He hooks a finger beneath her chest piece and tugs, fingers slipping through the swaying pink tassels. Byleth’s eyes flutter open.

“I waited for you,” Claude says softly.

She meets his eyes. He watches her with rapt fascination, desire raw and naked on his face. He has never offered himself up to her so earnestly before. No subterfuge, no clever quips. Just himself.

“Claude! Are you done--oh,” says Hilda, skidding to a halt just before them. Her eyes widen.

“Yes, Hilda?” says Claude, mouth twitching. He swivels his gaze to her with much effort.

Hilda wrings her hands and sways cutely. “Never mind,” she says, backing away.

“Hilda, wait,” says Byleth. Claude and Hilda both freeze where they stand.

“Yes, Professor?”

“Your requested supplies,” says Byleth, brushing past Claude without glancing back. She takes Hilda gently by the elbow and guides her out of the room. “I’ve left them in the Captain’s Quarters for you.”

-

Dimitri doesn’t sleep, as far as Claude can tell.

This is a problem.

“Leave, if you wish to live,” snarls Dimitri at absolutely no one. He haunts the church both day and night. Shoulders rounded and heavy with thick furs, he paces around like a caged lion ready to kill.

It’s very dramatic.

“This is public domain, so I don’t think so,” says Claude. “You’re hardly the king of this castle.”

Dimitri whirls around, reaching for a weapon that isn’t there. Gilbert keeps the lances under lock and key at the training grounds. After an accident a few days ago, they’ve all decided it’s for the best that Dimitri does _not_ wield lances for practice.

“Get out of my sight.”

“That’s not very nice,” says Claude, wagging a finger. Dimitri snarls something indistinct and stalks off into the darkness, perhaps to resume his talks with the dead.

“It’s best not to bother him,” says Gilbert, emerging from the shadows.

“I know.” That doesn’t mean they can just _let_ him rot like this, though. Dimitri has his uses. He’s stronger than ten of their best men combined, and his rage can be funneled productively if and when they confront his keeper: Edelgard herself. That tragic figure hellbent on cutting a violent path to the future.

“The professor keeps vigil here every night,” says Gilbert.

Is that right. “Does he listen to her?”

“I do not know,” Gilbert sighs, shaking his head wearily. He must be so tired of babysitting these wayward children. Penance for the goddess, punishment for failing his dead king. Sure, sure. But Annette’s probably crying herself to sleep in her bedroom, and Gilbert’s wife is--what? Dead? Holding down House Dominic’s fort?

“Rufus is still alive and well, I presume,” Claude says to Gilbert’s grizzled frown.

“Indeed he is. Thank the goddess for small miracles,” murmurs Gilbert with a soulful glance to the heavens. So nice that the roof has been blown to smithereens--they can see the stars clearly now.

“I don’t think the goddess has anything to do with it,” Claude says. Gilbert’s face spasms with pain. But he’s too well-trained to bite his master’s hand; he won’t snap back, even if Claude belongs to another territory.

Even if Claude’s blood runs black with Almyra.

“Forgive me,” says Gilbert stiffly, bowing like a butler with too much to do. But Claude doesn’t miss the way his lips tighten with anger. “I must take my leave. Good night, milord.”

“Night, Gilbert,” says Claude dismissively.

Seconds later, Dimitri screams himself raw at the statues of the saints, his pain echoing like thousands of dying men around the hollow walls of the bombed-out church.

-

Claude returns the following night.

Gilbert is right: Byleth is here to keep vigil. She sits calm and upright in one of the pews as Dimitri snarls incoherent things at every passing shadow.

Claude keeps out of sight. Something is going to happen, and his presence would only ruin it.

“You _failed_ me,” hisses Dimitri, jabbing an accusatory finger right at Byleth’s face. His hair looks like dirty hay from the stables, and Claude’s willing to bet that he _smells_ like them too.

Byleth must care for him a great deal if she’s willing to endure this.

Claude can’t tear his eyes away.

“I did,” says Byleth evenly. She holds still as Dimitri slams a fist into the rotting wood beside her. And… yep, that’s definitely going to leave a mark.

“And what do you have to say for yourself,” he says, single eye a blazing, hateful blue. He lowers his face until they are practically the same person, so close that Claude can’t gauge either of their expressions or moods.

Byleth murmurs something indistinct. It sounds familiar, the soft, reassuring cadences of her voice. She raises a hand to stroke the side of Dimitri’s face.

Dimitri makes a pained noise at the back of his throat, desperate and lost. He wraps a hand around the back of Byleth’s head, strong fingers threading through her soft mint-colored hair and—

And—

Of course.

They’re kissing.

-

“I-is everything alright?” Marianne asks him. Claude shrugs. He sits on a bed in the infirmary, hands resting uneasily in his lap. Manuela isn’t around today after that horrible debacle with the Death Knight. Flayn has long-since gotten back on her feet. The speed of her recovery could even be deemed preternatural, but Claude’s in no state to do any sleuthing for now.

Marianne volunteers at the infirmary from time to time. Claude knows she prefers to work with the horses, particularly Dorte, the easygoing stallion that whinnies sweetly whenever she’s around. But stable duty has been relegated to Lorenz and Leonie for now, because yeah, Professor Manuela can be sadistic like that.

“Just pulled a muscle during target practice, that’s all,” says Claude easily. Marianne’s generally straightforward to talk to. That is, he does most of the talking, and she lowers her chin to her chest and mumbles something heartbreaking. Hilda really needs to give her some room to grow; at this rate, they’re bound to end up in a codependent relationship, roots tangled hopelessly together. It’s honestly the last thing Marianne needs, no matter how much Hilda loves her.

“Oh,” says Marianne, eyes widening. “Um… n-no, I meant…” She bites her lip, searching for the right words. “You seem, um… sad, somehow.”

Claude raises his eyebrows.

“Is that so,” he says wonderingly. “What makes you say that?”

“Oh, um,” Marianne flusters. “W-well, when the professor checked in just now, you looked…”

Claude barks a laugh, because nothing silences Marianne faster than the fear of being laughed at. It’s probably cruel, and Hilda would definitely kick him in the groin for it, but he can’t bear to hear her finish that sentence.

“Think I’ll just sleep it off in my room,” he says blithely, leaping to his feet. Marianne looks stricken and remorseful. Claude grins.

“See ya, Marianne. Thanks for your help.”

-

Byleth doesn’t shove Dimitri back.

That’s what makes him move. It’s now or never.

“Teach! Your Highness!”

It’s almost comical how quickly they pull apart. Claude recalls this exact scenario years ago, right after they’d returned from Remire, and the irony of it all makes his mouth taste of copper.

Dimitri glowers, lip curling with disdain and slight fury. He’s no longer the blushing, stammering teenager of yesteryear.

Byleth shows no emotion at all. She just watches him quietly, shadows flickering across her face.

“Thought I might find you two here,” Claude says cheerfully, but his words have an edge to them. He can barely see through the haze of anger. His hands twitch uselessly at his sides. It’s a good thing that he doesn’t have his bow.

Envy is a coward’s game, a lesser man’s foible. His father, more mountain than man, would sneer at the weakness Khalid is showing right now. A weakness brought on by a _woman._ ‘ _Do not hesitate to take what is yours_ ,’ he booms in his thunderous voice, the one that chases him screaming out of his dreams.

Leonie shouts in the distance, her hurried footfalls echoing down the bridge. “Empire troops at the monastery!” she shrieks, voice ragged with fear, and the _glee_ this makes Claude feel is only a little worrying.

For once, he actively _wants_ to kill.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I seem to remember being  
> many more people  
> loose weave of wind  
> knotted with cries  
>  _— Naomi Shihab Nye_

Several moons before the siege at Garreg Mach, Claude finds Dedue. He finds Dedue because Dedue will find Dimitri, and it’s so tragically hilarious that no one else has picked up on this already—not even the omniscient Emperor herself.

Cornelia locks the feral prince of Faerghus away in their capital city. She leaves him to rot in the cavernous dark, a victim to his visions and oldest wounds. To her newly acquired Kingdom, she peddles a story of his gruesome, justified death, and no one thinks to question her.

When Dedue and Claude find him, his mind is already long gone; what’s left behind is less than human.

“Dedue,” Claude grunts, wincing as Dimitri sags bonelessly against his shoulder. “A little help, here?” Wyvern-Byleth isn’t far, but he’s still going to break something if Dedue doesn’t lend a hand. Even emaciated and bony like this, Dimitri is unbearably heavy.

Dedue stares through the cold iron bars of Dimitri’s cell. “They are coming,” he says.

“Yeah, I know,” Claude grits out.

Dedue shakes his head and raises his axe, sensing something Claude can only guess at. The last rays of sunlight streak across his face like claw marks. Even down here, in this forsaken pit of a cell in Dimitri’s homeland, the light finds a way in. It burns everything it touches.

Dedue lowers his eyes. “Go,” he says. “Do not wait for me.”

-

After Remire, after the hairline cracks in Dimitri’s damaged psyche have already started to form, Claude finds Dedue alone at the greenhouse. His sister’s flowers blaze red in the midst of all the soft Fodlan green.

“You’re doing him no favors, you know,” Claude says. “It’s best to just leave him be. Outsiders like us have no real stake here.”

Dedue’s face gives him absolutely nothing to work with. He’s worse than Byleth, because at least Byleth is obviously foreign, soft white skin and starry blue eyes. But Dedue is his brother. Dedue is the familiar dark.

There’s supposed to be solidarity between them _,_ innate and pre-formed, but all Claude finds is the same pity, the same alien stare. The one Almyrans give him when they think he isn’t looking.

The servants at the palace used to call him a mixed-blood mutt, unaware that Khalid could understand them, albeit imperfectly. His mother had scrubbed his tongue with soap after he’d naively repeated their words to her.

“Never,” she’d scolded him, lips tight with fear, “ever say those things, my love. Promise me.”

(But she’d said nothing when Khalid’s father had bellowed the same words over dinner, face glowing red after one too many goblets of wine. _‘I can call him a dirty hybrid if I want, Tiana,’_ he’d roared, brilliant head tossed back with laughter, ‘ _because I’m the one who_ made _him.’_ )

“You are mistaken,” Dedue says, shaking his head politely, and it’s so funny that Claude forgets to laugh. Duscur is historical now; Fodlan saw to that. It exists only in dusty textbooks, in a sparse network of weary diasporic souls. Dedue, more than anyone else here, carries the weight of an entire culture on his back.

But being Dimitri’s packing mule is an insult to his radiant race. He’s meant for castles and important war councils. He’s meant for Duscur’s dazzling resurgence, a blazing phoenix rising from the ashes.

Instead, he’s willingly returned to Fodlan in chains.

“I do not expect you to understand,” says Dedue with such gentle, knowing eyes. These are the eyes of an animal being led to the slaughter; Claude can’t see them any other way. He cannot fathom falling in love with a murderous Fodlanese prince, no matter how tragic his backstory may be.

“I understand perfectly,” Claude says, grinning hard enough to hurt.

-

Dimitri wakes somewhere between Castle Gaspard and Garreg Mach.

He roars into the darkness, lunging for someone that isn’t there. Wyvern-Byleth rumbles with displeasure. Claude rubs circles against her side to comfort her, swallowing his ire.

“Morning, Your Highness,” he says, patting Dimitri on the shoulder. His lips tug into a thin smile. “It’s me. Claude.”

DimitrI looks right through him. “Claude,” he repeats.

He stays silent for the rest of their trip.

Thieves herald their arrival at Garreg Mach with a flurry of flaming arrows. Fancy stuff for vermin. But when Dimitri starts foaming at the mouth, Claude figures that Empire troops must be nearby, too.

Claude clicks his tongue. “Edelgard sure knows her stuff,” he sighs, steering Wyvern-Byleth to the far side of the monastery.

Dimitri hisses Edelgard’s name with as much hatred as he can muster. Years of starvation and imprisonment have stripped away his princely veneer, but his slavish devotion to Edelgard remains, harsher and more defining than ever. Hell, Claude could toss Dimitri naked into a nest of Empire soldiers and watch him murder every one.

“Whoah there, not so fast, Your Highness,” Claude says after they’ve touched down behind the cathedral. Dimitri violently jerks away from him and charges at the thieves crowding the west entrance. He slams into the closest assassin and wrenches the shining dagger from his hand.

Claude shoots the two soldiers that come rushing up behind him. Dimitri doesn’t even notice; he’s too busy carving shapes into the assassin’s disfigured face.

When he finishes, the man’s body slumps to the ground with a sickening plop, dark blood pooling beneath him. His face is a perfect hole, all of its tissue and humanity scraped cleanly away.

“Lovely work,” says Claude mildly. Dimitri whirls on him with the dagger raised. Claude nocks an arrow and grins. “After you,” he says brightly.

-

Once they’ve draped Dimitri in his precious furs—a parting gift from his vassal, who’s probably cold and lifeless on the floor of Dimitri’s cell by now—they make for the Goddess Tower.

Dimitri’s strength may be inhuman, but even he tires after five or six kills. Soon he’s staggering up the steps to the Goddess Tower while screaming at shadow people. It would be tragic and worrying to anyone else, but Claude is too busy trying to not get killed. 

After another soldier charges at him in close range, Claude tosses his bow aside for Dimitri’s abandoned lance.

He plunges it into the Empire soldier’s neck. Then he whirls around and does the same thing to a bishop who’s strayed too far from the pack.

By the time they’ve stopped coming for him, Claude’s made himself a tidy little pile of bodies at the foot of the tower. 

“I’ve done what you asked, Father, _please_ ,” Dimitri moans brokenly from up the steps. Claude shakes another Empire soldier’s corpse off his boot, clicking his tongue at the stain her body leaves behind.

He joins Dimitri at the top of the tower. A brilliant dawn greets them both, golden rays stretching across the dark horizon.

“Your father is dead, Dimitri,” Claude says.

-

Byleth meets Claude’s eyes evenly as Dimitri rushes past them both. Already they hear the telltale sounds of battle in the distance, the monastery besieged by dozens of well-trained Empire troops. There’s no time whatsoever to settle matters over tea.

“Come with me, Teach,” says Claude, nodding at the stretch of sky before them. “My way’s faster.”

-

In the end, Randolph’s men lay waste to their scrappy bunch of former students. They take Mercedes. They take Ignatz. And, if Byleth hadn’t intervened, they would’ve taken Dimitri, too.

“—a complete _disgrace,”_ Lorenz fumes after the last of the Adrestrians have been routed. He shakes a mailed fist at Gilbert’s pallid face. Claude gives them both a second to work through their coping rituals, idly inspecting the blood splatter on his tunic. It’s artful, almost. “How _dare_ he put our entire campaign in danger for the sake of— of—”

Byleth takes Lorenz by the shoulder before he can say anything else. “Enough,” is all she murmurs, but it _is_ enough to make the air itself pause.

They leave for the main hall again in silent clusters. Usually, the healers are first _and_ last to return, sticking like stubborn little burrs to the sides of the wounded, but today the shimmery edge of Mercedes’ veil flutters from beneath a mound of blood-soaked earth. What remains of Ignatz is hidden completely. There’s no dramatic rainfall to render this moment plaintive, no chorus of sobbing women to stir sympathy. There’s only Dimitri, ramming Randolph’s face into the ground repeatedly with a blood-soaked boot, and the sound of Annette’s muffled screaming.

-

The men bring out the drinks.

Mulled wine and dusty casks of cider, mead with wax seals gnawed away by cellar rats—they arrange their spoils in neat piles by the dining tables, and then Ashe and Yuri wend their way into the kitchens to make something passably edible.

One by one, soldiers stop by to drink.

Lorenz wipes out after the second round. Raphael, unusually quiet, repeatedly yanks him upright by the scruff of his neck while Bernadetta and Ingrid giggle drunkenly next to him. The Deer take after their house leader in their show of quasi-festive solidarity, feasting more on each other’s moods and personalities than on the food itself (Raphael, naturally, being the exception), while the Lions scatter throughout the grounds, a grieving pride without its leader.

Dimitri’s at the church, fetal and furious under a blanket of indifferent stars, or perhaps curled into a pitiable ball at St. Cichol’s feet. After he’d finished with Randolph’s head, he’d collapsed at Byleth’s feet, overtaken by shadow-men and their wretched sayings.

“Let him rot,” Sylvain had joked with a hard little smile. Felix and Ingrid had already been out of earshot by then.

The other Lord of the evening is also missing in action, but instinctively Byleth knows he isn’t far. If she closes her eyes, she can picture him mapping out new strategies for their next chapter, schemes pinned in flowing Almyran script to the wall behind him. It’s just as likely that he’s combing their library for its remaining sources on Fodlanese warfare. Not once since waking has Byleth seen him unwind in his own room, which used to be where all of his obsessions laid. Perhaps this future Claude--this new Claude, draped in gold and the sheen of leadership--does not take breaks anymore.

“Claude normally loves these things,” sighs Hilda into her chipped flagon, leaning into Marianne’s side like it’s second nature by now. The sight of them twined together makes something in Byleth’s chest ache. “But tonight I haven’t seen him even once.”

“He didn’t seem injured, earlier,” observes Marianne, building on Hilda’s worry.

“Do _you_ know where he is?” Hilda asks, looking at Byleth directly.

She doesn’t, but she has a guess.

-

Predictably, Byleth finds him at the Goddess Tower.

She comes to him slowly, cheeks warm from drinking.

“Claude,” she says. He turns to stare at her impassively, no easy smile in sight. Rather, the blurred lines of his face denote frustration, _anger_ even, and abruptly Byleth regrets seeking him out at all.

“I’ve always wanted to burn this place to the ground,” admits Claude airily. “How about you, Teach? Ever had a thought like that?”

Byleth stumbles a little. Claude, seeing this, offers her his shoulder. She braces herself against it, throat closing as she struggles to form a coherent reply.

“You... radiated hatred,” she says, the words dredged up from somewhere deep. “When you were seventeen, I mean.”

“Radiated,” repeats Claude, enunciating the syllables. His eyes shine in the dark. “No one speaks like you. Did you know that?”

“Make another joke about--about my lack of qualifications,” she sighs, trying her best to not slur. “Go on.”

“It’s--gah, it’s not,” says Claude. He sounds genuinely upset that she’d assume as much. But like a needle wobbling due North, his smile eventually returns. “It’s uniquely you, is all,” he clarifies.

Byleth tries to mask her laughter by coughing into her hand. “I’m not like other girls,” she says.

Claude reaches for her wrist.

“You aren’t. Other girls would balk at my pyrotechnics.”

“Not Edelgard.” She thinks of others. “Not Lysithea.” Not any of them, to be honest.

Claude’s the one to laugh this time. “Maybe you’re on the wrong side, Teach.”

She can’t respond definitively here, because doing so would be a lie. Five years for everyone else was plenty of time to pledge allegiance to one of the varied bodies of power in Fodlan. But for her, less than a week is anything but.

Byleth clears her throat.

“I’m here because--”

“--you knew, as I did--”

“--there was nowhere else to go.”

Claude looks both mildly perturbed--eyes wide, features sharp and alert--and frustrated, perhaps to the point of adolescent angst. But he doesn’t sling anything silver her way; he just quiets and tries again.

“...doesn’t add up,” says Claude, breaking eye contact to sigh into his hands.

“What doesn’t?”

“I had five years to outgrow you. _Five_.”

Byleth shuts her eyes. More nausea, but it’s probably due to the actual conversation this time.

“It doesn’t work like that,” says Byleth. She tries to cast around for better, more convincing words, ones she’d greedily gathered from her late-night forays into the library, hours after Linhardt, Claude, or even Hanneman could catch her. “It doesn’t follow a fixed path, and--”

“Spare me the explanation,” says Claude. “No offense, Teach.”

More silence.

“‘Outgrow’ me,” she repeats, throwing down her gauntlet.

“Most of us thought you were dead. Lorenz sure did. I can show you his letters, if you’d like.”

“”Grieve’ would be a better choice of word, don’t you think?” she asks, rubbing her eyes. “‘Outgrow’ implies I was something childish for you. Something of a nuisance. You wanted to leave me behind with impunity.”

Claude murmurs a word she can’t parse.

“Sorry?”

He repeats it. “It’s Almyran for ' _menace_ ,’” he says. “At least, I think it is.”

“Menace,” says Byleth.

Claude takes her chin between his fingers. He tilts her head gently until her eyes meet his, and she lets him.

“You were the reason, to be honest,” he says.

“For what?”

Behind them, there’s a fresh round of laughter as Raphael bridal carries Lorenz over to a horrified and very red-faced Leonie.

“The reason I wanted to burn Garreg Mach down,” says Claude.

-

The next day, Byleth wakes drowsy and alone in an unfamiliar room.

“Sothis,” she asks, hesitant. "Rhea."

It’s Claude who answers her. “Never been called that one before,” he says.

Byleth draws the covers up to her chin. She accepts the glass of water that Claude holds out for her while holding the sheets in a death grip.

“Can’t see a thing, Teach. No need to worry about it,” says Claude merrily.

Still groggy, Byleth glances down at the sheets. This is Rhea’s bed, Rhea’s sheets.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” she says.

Claude, sleeveless and soft, takes a seat beside her on the bed. The mattress groans under their shared weight. Byleth has the fleeting thought of whether or not the Archbishop actually ever slept here.

“You remember our Battle of the Eagle and Lion, don’t you? All those years ago.”

“Yes,” she says. “You lost.”

“Ha! We did,” laughs Claude. “But then, the odds were never in our favor.”

“They always were, Claude.”

Claude studies her face without a hint of his usual adoration. Alone in the former Archbishop’s chambers, he doesn’t bother with pleasantries or clever little jibes, and his wordplay is stashed in its proverbial scabbard.

Slowly, deliberately, Claude removes his gloves, one by one. They drop onto the nightstand. Then he undoes the bindings on his doublet and shakes it off, letting the fabric slip from his shoulders with the whisper of a sigh.

“Claude,” warns Byleth.

He looks right at her, hair falling into his eyes, and says unsmilingly, “Too much for you, Teach?”

Once, she would have said yes. Absolutely. Students do not do this with teachers—never mind what Hanneman did with Linhardt when he thought the others weren’t looking, or what Manuela did with Sylvain the night before exams, mewling and giggling in the temporarily locked infirmary. Theirs is a religious farce, in all honesty; no one remembers their vows in church, least of all Rhea herself. They are beasts dressed in the silks of men.

But she isn’t a teacher anymore, despite the empty nickname Claude still calls her.

“Why do you try so hard,” Catherine had asked her once, half-naked in her own chambers. The Knights’ housing offered slightly more privacy than Byleth’s own quarters, but it was always a near thing.

“Try so hard for what?” she’d asked.

Later, on her fourth try of saving Annette’s tiny form from the blow of a Berserker’s axe, Catherine’s words had clicked into place for her. _Why try so hard for the ones that will leave you, anyway?_

Catherine had known her keeper; Byleth did and still does not. It’s a weakness, unfortunately, one that will cost her someday when she least expects it.

Claude leans forward and smooths a hand over her upper stomach.

“You wouldn’t have to move,” he offers. He peers up at her through his lashes, eyes a radiant green. The hand not resting beneath her breast finds its way to her lap. He slides it up and down, smoothing the fabric over, shifting his weight from one knee to the other.

He’s given her something like this before. Only, back then it had been flimsier, made of paper instead of wood. Tinsel, shiny and frail, only brought out to deck the halls for a party.

But now he’s offering her something older, something he’s only ever shown in private: desire, rooted and sure, an ancient oak tree’s swaying, gnarled branches. It’s strong enough to make her look away.

“Claude,” she says, at a loss.

Claude slips a hand beneath the sheets. It moves up to her leg, stopping short of her inner thigh. She has never longed to be fucked as much as she does now.

“Nobody needs to know,” he tells her.

-

Their trials at Ailell cut through everything else.

“You’ve a fine tactician there, boy,” says Judith. She claps him soundly on the back and guffaws at the face he makes. Trust Judith to emasculate him right after they’ve wrapped up a battle. The blood hasn’t even dried on his clothes.

“Thanks, but _I’m_ the tactician,” Claude sighs, unable to keep the boyish anger out of his voice. Judith riles him up far too easily. Alliance women seem to have a knack for it. “Teach is just here to look pretty.”

“I would not downplay the professor’s talent like that,” says Rodrigue with a fond smile. It’s so bizarre to see a man with Felix’s features _do_ that. If it weren’t for their physical resemblance, they’d probably be two completely different species. “I owe her my life, after all.”

“I had Claude’s help,” says Byleth. “If it weren’t for him, I never would have made it in time.” She says this directly to Rodrigue and Judith, head bowed in deference. The blood hasn’t dried yet on her clothes, either.

For all the piercing stares she’s given him over the past few days, you’d think Byleth could at least meet his eyes _now_ , especially when he’s the one she’s praising like this.

But she doesn’t. Claude has to smile at that.

Attention shifts to Dimitri as he staggers forward to grasp at Rodrigue’s shoulders. The soft look on his face makes him human again, if only for a moment.

“This is for you,” Rodrigue demurs, holding a gruesome, pulsating lance before Dimitri like a ritual offering. Dimitri’s eyes shine with gratitude—a first—and he takes the Relic with gentle hands, cradling it like a child.

“You are our King, now.” Rodrigue bows his head as if in prayer. “I will follow your orders, whatever they may be.”


End file.
